Saturday, July 02, 2005

Politics and Economics/Raised-a-Quaker

Struggling to do the right thingMail & Guardian Online/Johannesburg/South Africa/Africa1-Jul-05/He attributes his survival of all of this to steadfast parents whose sense of morality and justice led them to teach their children to be strong and “just get on with it”. There was no space for self-pity. Just a drive to “do the right thing”.Faith, in every sense, has been critical -- and not blind faith, either. The family Sunday lunch, to hear Boateng describe the family dynamics, must be quite an event -- his mother a confirmed Quaker, his father an Evangelist, his wife an Anglican and Boateng himself a committed Methodist. And yet they all find space to respect each other’s choice of how to respond to the demands of a Greater Power.And so, whatever that Greater Power is has brought Paul Boateng to his next calling -- the demands that could, just could, be served by embracing an ambassadorship to South Africa, flagship of an as yet undefined African renaissance.